do you care how many sexual partners

[JustImagineMe]

What matters is who you're with now.

Exactly!

Thread is closed damn it!

*looks in vain for padlock showing locked thread*

Actually I think this is a pretty decent topic. I'm enjoying the different takes here.

*nods in agreement*

I figure if I'm 41, a man I'm with could be late forties, early fifties, we're both going to have history but that's just what it is. History. No point getting all worked up about someone's past that I can't do anything about. If that person is with me now, I have to trust it's because they want to be with me. All theoretical, of course, since I'm single

If only I'd have thought this way twenty years ago.

 

[LadyVer]

I'd rather not know. What's in the past is over with. However, I don't want to he #201 for someone who's keeping score either...

 

[Litfanman_inGB]

I don't think I could handle that kind of relationship. I can understand not wanting to open up to someone at first, but I sincerely hope that my wife doesn't drop some deep personality defining confessions in my lap after we've been married for 15 years. I think I would feel kind of betrayed in a way. I would wonder, 'Holy shit! What else is she not telling me?' That's just bad mojo.

That's an accurate description of the way I feel about it at the moment.

Personally, I feel kind of obligated to share with her whatever she wants to know, or at least those things that have happened in my life that had a significant impact on who I am and why I do the things that I do. I really hope she feels the same way. How are you to really know someone if you don't know those things?

That's been my approach with her from the beginning. She has issues with sex, trust and intimacy and apparently these events, coupled with religious beliefs, she unloaded on me recently are a big part of why. I don't know, maybe it makes me less of a man or something but I have a big problem with that. Expressing these feelings to her all these years has yielded zero results, hence my frustration. Our sexual experimentation has always been one-sided.

She has also expressed interest in bringing men and women into our bedroom, again for her but rescinded when the option for me to participate was put on the table. Something I knew would never work for the reasons above. I also felt I was being baited.

You're right though - it's about trust. I hope it all comes to light for you Litfanman.

It's frustrating because I've given up everything for her, friends, family, everything. I don't go anywhere with anyone because she flips out, I go to work and back home. My trust has less to do with her past lovers and more to do with the type of women she chooses to surround herself with. Usually it's the bitter biddy going through a divorce, club-hopping singles or the divorced and making up for lost years types. She likes their stories of having all these guys, going out and drinking and all the wonderful single-life stories.

They fill her head with nonsense about standing up to me and make her feel like some kind of victim. I've never told her she couldn't go have a drink with her coworkers, I'm not her father after all, but she's used me as a scapegoat to avoid it. These women often compromise her safety by getting her involved in their bad marriage/relationship breakups. This usually leads to my wife being confronted and often harassed on her job afterward by their husbands/boyfriends. She usually hides this from me as well but recently let slip that her friends husband attempted to get to her in her car while she sat watching them have a domestic dispute over the vehicle she was attempting to take.

The difficult part of all this is we have a child together and I have raised her daughters since they were two and three, respectively. I guess that's why I have been more hesitant to file for divorce. I happen to love her as well and we've been through quite a bit. I've found a balance in all aspects of my life now but my marriage and her unwillingness to compromise or even talk about it has left me considering finally filing and moving on. I'm still struggling with it.

Thanks for your reply.

 

[Beck31]

Interesting take.

 

[blu3tooth]

My wife has said I was #48 (and she's had 5 that I know about since) and it has never bothered me. I have a friend whose wife had 0 before him (and about 40 since, incl me).

I like hearing about her past and she would tell me, but as the yrs roll by she says now that she just can't remember.